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Hacking Big Brother With Help From Revlon
skids writes "All those futuristic full-face eyeliner jobs in dystopian cyberpunk fiction might not be that far off the mark. A New York University student spent his thesis time exploring computer vision technology (OpenCV) for ways in which one could confound first-stage algorithms that initially lock onto faces. Then he mixed in a bit of fashion sense to predict future geek chic. Now, whether you want to go for the coal-miner look just to stay out of the data mine, that's up to you."
Whatever happened to just wearing a ski mask when committing a "crime"? I'm not sure I'd feel less silly painting my face than simply putting on a mask.
Whats the point of bypassing facial recognition if you've still been recorded in a manner that could identify you? It would help abate real-time face-triggered alerts, but not much else.
If people start doing this, I predict it would only be a matter of time before the police would categorize anyone with a painted face as a possible terrorist threat, such as how the ski mask is considered now.
I wonder how common nIR graffiti is? It would be visible in 'night vision' CCTV cameras, and often to regular CCD and CMOS cameras with poor filters, but invisible to the naked eye.
In fact, it's incredibly easy to swap the nIR blocking filter in a cheap camera for an IR-pass/optically opaque filter. Leaving invisible notes for people could be pretty fun.